Jamie McGoldrick, the UN humanitarian coordinator overseeing crisis relief in the occupied Palestinian territory, said on Friday that aid deliveries to civilians in Gaza remain seriously constrained by long delays at checkpoints and security gaps inside the enclave.

McGoldrick pushed back at Israeli claims that more than 1,000 trucks had entered Gaza in recent days, saying only around 800 had been collected on the Palestinian side and that checkpoints and internal security conditions were preventing aid from reaching people in need. He said the Israeli authorities, as the occupying power, must recognize that “their responsibility as the occupying power only ends when aid reaches the civilians in Gaza.”

McGoldrick described chronic operational problems that reduce the effectiveness of convoys. “So far this month, we've wasted 60 hours of trucks going up there, downtime on on dead time,” he said, adding that convoys can travel north only in daylight and are sometimes canceled late in the day. He said those cancellations then lead to blame that the convoy or mission was canceled by humanitarian agencies.

Only three routes are open in Gaza today, McGoldrick said: the Sala Al Din road through the middle, the coastal Al Rashid road and a military road on the east side of the territory. He said that in the last month there was never a time when two of those roads were open simultaneously, creating further bottlenecks for deliveries.

The UN coordinator's comments underscore continuing operational and security obstacles to getting aid from entry points into Gaza to the civilians who need it most. Daniel Johnson, UN News.